MobileRead Forums - View Single Post - Native Abiword 2.8.6 for the Kindle Scribe (and possibly other Kindles)

kbarni · 07-03-2026, 07:07 AM

Thanks, this looks great!

However I encountered some bugs:

- first, launch.sh (or the booklet) won't display abiword. It will run somewhere in the background (as I see the process) but no window is displayed. If I click the scriptlet again, it says Abiword is already running. When running from kterm, I get:

Code:

[abiword-launch] launching ./abiword on DISPLAY=:0
Aborted
[abiword-launch] abiword exited rc=134

The "Aborted" line appears about 1 minute after "launching"

- If I start directly ./abiword from kterm, I can see the window (without the toolbar button icons - but this is normal), it responds to touch events, but keypresses aren't registered - they go to kterm. (And the UI is very slow.)

I had other issues too, but first I think these should be addressed, so I'm sure it starts with the correct setup.

I'm testing on PW11 with firmware 5.18.5

Some other observations:
- Make the booklet cover 1.4:1 or 1.5:1 aspect ratio, to have the same size as the book covers (I prefer to use 320x480)
- I think it's an overkill to check the installation at every launch. You can just create a package with a "documents" folder containing the booklet and "kindle-abiword" containing the app (you can add the "extensions" folder for kual). The user just copies everything on the Kindle and it's installed.

07-03-2026, 07:07 AM	#2
kbarni Zealot Posts: 124 Karma: 289266 Join Date: Feb 2025 Device: Kindle PW5	Thanks, this looks great! However I encountered some bugs: - first, launch.sh (or the booklet) won't display abiword. It will run somewhere in the background (as I see the process) but no window is displayed. If I click the scriptlet again, it says Abiword is already running. When running from kterm, I get: Code: [abiword-launch] launching ./abiword on DISPLAY=:0 Aborted [abiword-launch] abiword exited rc=134 The "Aborted" line appears about 1 minute after "launching" - If I start directly ./abiword from kterm, I can see the window (without the toolbar button icons - but this is normal), it responds to touch events, but keypresses aren't registered - they go to kterm. (And the UI is very slow.) I had other issues too, but first I think these should be addressed, so I'm sure it starts with the correct setup. I'm testing on PW11 with firmware 5.18.5 Some other observations: - Make the booklet cover 1.4:1 or 1.5:1 aspect ratio, to have the same size as the book covers (I prefer to use 320x480) - I think it's an overkill to check the installation at every launch. You can just create a package with a "documents" folder containing the booklet and "kindle-abiword" containing the app (you can add the "extensions" folder for kual). The user just copies everything on the Kindle and it's installed.